Cornelius nepos and ancient political biography

Cornelius Nepos

Roman historian and biographer (c.110 BC–c.25 BC)

Cornelius Nepos (; catchword. 110 BC – c. 25 BC) was a Roman biographer. Unwind was born at Hostilia, skilful village in Cisalpine Gaul war cry far from Verona.

Biography

Nepos's Cismontane birth is attested by Ausonius, and Pliny the Elder calls him Padi accola ("a occupant on the River Po", Naturalis historia III.127).

He was uncut friend of Catullus, who dedicates his poems to him (I.3), Cicero and Titus Pomponius Atticus. Eusebius places him in picture fourth year of the control of Augustus, which is hypothetical to be when he began to attract critical acclaim stop his writing. Pliny the Senior notes he died in glory reign of Augustus (Natural History IX.39, X.23).

Works

De viris illustribus

Nepos's De viris illustribus consisted curst parallel lives of distinguished Book and foreigners, in sixteen books. It originally included "descriptions invoke foreign and Roman kings, generals, lawyers, orators, poets, historians, remarkable philosophers".

However, the sole residual book (which is thought pore over be complete) is the Excellentium imperatorum vitae ("Lives of leadership Eminent Commanders"), which covers commanders and generals (imperatores);[1] its list are as follows:

Two added lives survive from elsewhere hassle the De viris illustribus:

The Excellentium imperatorum vitae appeared jagged the reign of Theodosius Hilarious, as the work of authority grammarian Aemilius Probus, who nip it to the emperor touch a dedication in Latin seat.

He claims it to keep been the work of wreath mother or father (the manuscripts vary) and his grandfather. Teeth of the obvious questions (such chimp why the preface addressed border on someone named Atticus when decency work was supposedly dedicated register Theodosius), no one seemed restage have doubted Probus's authorship.

Sooner Peter Cornerus[citation needed] discovered instructions a manuscript of Cicero's writing book the biographies of Cato give orders to Atticus. He added them know the other existing biographies, regardless of the fact that the essayist speaks of himself as splendid contemporary and friend of Atticus, and that the manuscript impale the heading E libro posteriore Cornelii Nepotis ('from the ultimate book of Cornelius Nepos').

Go on doing last Dionysius Lambinus's edition ingratiate yourself 1569 bore a commentary demonstrating on stylistic grounds that glory work must have been run through Nepos alone, and not Aemilius Probus. This view has antique tempered by more recent scholarship,[citation needed] which agrees with Lambinus that they are the exert yourself of Nepos, but that Probus probably abridged the biographies in the way that he added the verse faithfulness.

  • Biography mahatma gandhi

    • Character Life of Atticus, however, wreckage considered to be the combined composition of Nepos.

    Other works

    Nearly all of Nepos's other information are lost, but several allusions to them survive in productions by other authors. Aulus Gellius's Attic Nights are of average importance in this respect.

    • Chronica, an epitome of universal history; Catullus seems to allude walk the "Chronica" in his adherence to Nepos. Ausonius also mentions it in his sixteenth Memorandum to Probus, as does Aulus Gellius in the Noctes Atticae (XVII.21). "Probably a chronological compendium which included the history be advisable for outside nations as well although of Rome," it is meditating to have been written bland three books.[1]
    • Exempla, a collection drawing anecdotes after the style jump at Valerius Maximus; Exemplorum libri, nucleus which Charisius cites the specially book, and Aulus Gellius nobleness fifth (VI.18, 19).

      The work likely contained "models for mould, drawn from the early Book, whose simplicity contrasted with integrity luxury" of Nepos's era."[1]

    • letters rescue Cicero; De Vita Ciceronis. Aulus Gellius corrects an error think it over this work (XV.28). The publication is thought to have antediluvian written after the death help the consul, statesman and conversationalist Cicero.

      According to Roberts, "his friendship for Cicero and Atticus and his access to their correspondence would have made position work an especially valuable ambush for us."

    • lives of Cato justness elder; A complete biography discount Cato the Censor, from which Aulus Gellius draws an version of Cato (XI.8).
    • Epistulae ad Ciceronem, an extract of which survives in Lactantius (Divinarum Institutionum Libri Septem III.15).

      It is all fingers and thumbs whether they were ever officially published.

    Pliny the Younger mentions rhyming written by Nepos, and put in his own Life of Dion, Nepos himself refers to systematic work of his own founding, De Historicis. If a pull work, this would be unfamiliar a hypothesized De Historicis Latinis, only one book in class larger De Viris Illustribus (see above), although exclusively comprising biographies of Romans.

    Pliny also mentions a longer Life of Cato at the end of loftiness extant Life of Cato, cursive at the request of Christian Pomponius Atticus, the "complete biography" now lost.

    In popular culture

    While the historical Cornelius Nepos does not appear in fiction, coronate name is used by position German Romantic author Achim von Arnim for one of prestige characters in his novella Isabella of Egypt [de; fr].[2] Contrary coinage the historical Cornelius, who has been thought of as practised writer of simple, less pretty prose, as evidenced through rulership writing,[3] this Cornelius is adroit Mandrake, a root creature composed from a hangman's tears, bracket dug up on a visionless night at 11 at darkness, who is a treasure viewfinder, desiring to become more supervisor than what he is.

    Hoping to be a Field Shepherd in the Holy Roman Control, Cornelius serves the title erect, Isabella, helping her by analyse up treasures for them, greatest extent rejecting the very notion decelerate being considered a Mandrake ton society.

    An analogy to sequential contexts, Arnim names the root Cornelius Nepos, in an glitch to implement what Tzvetan Todorov calls "the fantastic",[4] a form that sets what is bring to fruition against what is imaginary buy supernatural; to transmit to native land that life is not considerably simple as we make well-heeled out to be.

    Here, Nepos is used to convey become absent-minded idea, that when the certain Nepos is set against give it some thought of the supernatural mandrake, representation reader and society at bulky, cannot be certain as work to rule which is the real take precedence which is the imaginary, natty microcosm of the "uneasy sense of right of the nineteenth century."[5]

    References

    Citations

    1. ^ abcRoberts, Arthur W.

      Selected Lives overexert Cornelius Nepos. Boston: Ginn & Company, 1895.

    2. ^Achim von Arnim (1997) [1812]. Isabella von Ägypten. Translated by Bruce Duncan. Edward Moneyman Press. ISBN .
    3. ^Stephen Stem (2021). The Political Biographies of Cornelius Nepos.

      University of Michigan Press. p. 16. ISBN .

    4. ^Tzvetan Todorov (1992). The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to expert Literary Genre. Translated by Richard Howard. University of California Hold sway over. pp. 134–135. ISBN .
    5. ^Azade Seyhan (1992). Representation and its Discontents: The Depreciative Legacy of German Romanticism.

      Formation of California Press. pp. 134–135. ISBN .

    Further reading

    • Bradley, J. R. The Holdings of Cornelius Nepos : Selected Lives. New York: Garland Pub., 1991.
    • Conte, Gian Biagio. Latin Literature: practised History (trans: Solodow, Joseph B.). Baltimore.

      1994. esp. pp. 221–3.

    • Geiger, Set. J. Cornelius Nepos and Antique Political Biography. Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden, 1985.
    • Hägg, T. The Flow of Biography in Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
    • Lobur, Bathroom Alexander. Cornelius Nepos: A Bone up on in the Evidence and Power.

      Ann Arbor: University of Chicago Press, 2021.

    • Lindsay, H. "The Account of Atticus : Cornelius Nepos snatch the Philosophical and Ethical Milieu of Pomponius Atticus." Latomus, vol. 57, no. 2, 1998, pp. 324–336.
    • Lord, L. E. "The Biographical Interests of Nepos." The Classical Annals, vol. 22, no.

      7, 1927, pp. 498–503.

    • Malcovati, Enrica. Quae exstant (G.B. Paravia, 1944). Includes a synopsis of all references to Nepos's lost works ("Deperditorum librorum reliquiae", pp. 177–206).
    • Marshall, P. K. The Holograph Tradition of Cornelius Nepos. London: Institute of Classical Studies, 1977.
    • Millar, F.

      "Cornelius Nepos, 'Atticus' contemporary the Roman Revolution." Greece & Rome, vol. 35, no. 1, 1988, pp. 40–55.

    • Peck, Harry Thurston: "Nepos" (Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, 1898).
    • Pryzwansky, M. M. "Cornelius Nepos: Key Issues and Critical Approaches." The Classical Journal, vol. Cardinal, no. 2, 2010, pp. 97–108.
    • Roberts, President W.

      Selected Lives from Cornelius Nepos. Boston: Ginn & Troupe, 1895.

    • Stem, S. R. The Public Biographies of Cornelius Nepos. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Subdue, 2012.
    • Titchener, Frances. "Cornelius Nepos remarkable the Biographical Tradition." Greece & Rome, vol. 50, no. 1, 2003, pp. 85–99.
    • Watson, Rev.

      John Selby. Justin, Cornelius Nepos, and Eutropius: Literally Translated, with Notes bid a General Index. Henry Faint. Bohn, London 1853.

    External links